From Trauma to Harming Others

From Trauma to Harming Others shows the approach of professionals from the world-renowned Portman Clinic, which specializes in work with violence, delinquency and sexual acting out.

This book focuses on the intricacies of working with young people who display such worrying behaviours. Written by experienced and eminent authors, the chapters unpack central theories and open up original ideas describing a range of work with sexual offenders, compulsive pornography users and violent young people. The central theme of the book is trauma and how acting out can be understood as a way of managing the psychic pain of such trauma. The chapters are ingrained with understandings from the classical psychoanalytic traditions of the Portman and Tavistock Clinics, together with more recent thinking about trauma, rooted in neurobiological, developmentally and trauma informed theories. They emphasize the need for awareness of both the victim of trauma and the perpetrator within the same person presenting for help, while panning treatment.

With insights and examples from experienced clinicians, this book will be of value to all those working with traumatized, acting out young people.

Ariel Nathanson is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist. He is the clinical lead for the treatment of the under 21s at the Portman Clinic, where he has been working for many years, specialising in the assessment and treatment of children, adolescents and young adults who display perverse, delinquent and violent behaviours.

Graham Music (PHD) is Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics and an adult psychotherapist in private practice. Formerly Associate Clinical Director of the Tavistock’s child and family department, he has managed a range of services working with the aftermath of child maltreatment and neglect, and organised many community based psychotherapy services.

Janine Sternberg is Clinical Course Director of the IPCAPA (Independent Psychoanalytic Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Association) training at the bpf. Previously she worked as a Consultant Child Psychotherapist at the Portman Clinic, Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, having worked for many years before that at the Tavistock Mulberry Bush Day Unit, a small unit for children with complex difficulties.